Rolando Andaya: ‘Benjamin Diokno liable for technical malversation’

MANILA, Philippines — There is enough evidence to hold Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno criminally liable for allegedly allowing “contractuals” in the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to bid out billions of pesos in projects and encroach on other agencies’ turfs. 

Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., chairman of the appropriations committee of the House of Representatives, said this was the initial assessment of their colleague Leyte Rep. Vicente Veloso. 

“A committee member, former Court of Appeals justice and now Rep. Veloso, has found enough grounds to charge Secretary Diokno with technical malversation, at the very least. Diokno is the top boss at the DBM. The buck stops with him,” he said. 

Commission on Audit official Joey Bernardino disclosed earlier that they have recommended the filing of administrative sanctions against members of the bids and awards committee of DBM-PS (procurement service) who refuse to submit Project Monitoring Reports to them.

The staff of DBM-PS include 396 “contractual” employees who allegedly bidded out about P198 billion in government projects that encroached on the mandate of various agencies, primarily the Department of Transportation. 

This developed as Andaya declared executive departments will “no longer be allowed to pass their procurement and bidding activities for big-ticket projects outside their offices” once the 2019 General Appropriations Bill is approved. 

“This is one of the budget reforms that House conferees on the bicameral committee will push when the discussion on the 2019 budget resumes next week,” he said in a statement, in an attempt to stop the DBM-PS’s illegal practice. 

“The illegal bidding activities of DBM-PS were exposed when its executive director Bingle Gutierrez testified at the House investigation on questionable allocations and anomalous practices of DBM under Secretary Diokno,” Andaya related. 

Andaya said they will now “insist on the inclusion of a special provision explicitly stating that only the agency which requested funding can implement projects, including procurement and bidding activities.” 

“The only departments exempted from this rule are the Department of Agriculture, Department of Education and Department of Agrarian Reform, which may tap the expertise of the DPWH for their infrastructure projects,” Andaya said. 

He said DBM-PS must limit their role to the mandate provided by law, which is to procure common-use supplies of all government offices.